palinode project

HOW TO GROW ALMOST EVERYTHING

2010-05-25T13:57:00.001-05:00

new poems

2009-12-08T23:59:00.002-05:00

although the palinodes are still here for the taking, I have some newer work up on Josh Bolton's new web project:

http://wolfinafield.blogspot.com/

the other stuff he has up on the site is hilarious and wonderful already and i look forward to what he'll do next.

much love x2

hailey

one could

2009-10-04T22:29:00.002-05:00

one could keep writing palinodes forever, but for me, i found an end point, or made one, and that is why it's been so long since this blog has been updated.

are there still more poems to this project? maybe not, but i'm not ready to let the book be shut completely. so while i'm working in a very different direction, i'm leaving this blog here to remember where my exit was from these palinodes, from this structure, and also to consider it the same as an entrance, which i could step again in the future, as long as the door remains open.

till then, i'll try to post any upcoming events or readings on this page also.

much love to the cyberbots

hailey

Reading Tomorrow!

2009-01-26T15:15:00.000-05:00

I'll be doing a poetry (and maybe some other stuff) reading tomorrow night (Tuesday, January 27th) in Northern Liberties.

My good friend Abbi Dion is beginning a new reading series, and this will be the first event in the series. If you like poetry or if you just like me, please consider coming out!

When: Tuesday January 27th (TOMORROW!)
Time: 7:00 pm
Where: Wineo Bar
447 Poplar St
Philadelphia, PA 19123
(215) 925-0999

Hope to see everyone soon, friends!

love love and more love from....

hailey

The People's Poetry Call-In Show and Variety

2009-01-19T16:54:00.002-05:00

On January 30th from 12-5pm, be prepared to listen to the greatest 5 hours of radio you will ever know. We have so much planned, including: interviews, call in poems and rants, sounds (many types), talking objects, invented scenarios, coin tosses, music, accents, extemporaneous poems, themes (many types), and a chicken timer that we will not use to humiliate you.

When: January 30th, 2009, 12-5pm
Where: AM 1650 Nexus Radio!
What: People's Poetry Call-In Show and Variety!
Who: Ish Klein and Hailey Higdon

Call us, let's make a poem together!
Rant about whatever you want!
Answer interview questions!

Palinode 33

2008-11-08T19:57:00.002-05:00

view the future clear it

slash glass

And to myself I said

lu
lu
lu
lu lu
loo loo
loo loo

The cardinal that feeds on my feeder has a monogamous relationship with his partner.

Palinode 32

2008-04-20T14:52:00.008-05:00

I am here rare rare here

hare re re

regina

sash

regional sash

something anything

nobody matters

sweet fruit sweet plum

brow bow brow bow wrinkle wring

wringer

force liquid down the hatch hood and hustle

wring robin wring robin

wringing wet extremely wet

from this much whiteness

                                                        write it down (!)

                                                        did I say it before (?) to a white background (?)

WRITTEN LAW (:)

No wonder it’s skipping the record's all fucked.

*

No wonder it’s skipping the record's all fucked.

*

No wonder it’s skipping the record’s all fucked.

*

the collective body of teaching embodied in

my hand losing its hand-ness

                                                        I feel it tingle I feel it falling away

screw bean

SCRIPOPHILY (:)

the hobby of collecting share and bond

                                                        I have seen visual responders I have seen them
                                                        wiping their noses fixing their hair

*

big field big trees big house big clouds over

*

                                                          I ask for an expandable day

                       get longer

part-body

hand in one place and another another

my tut tut my tut tut to count the hours

bullbuildinghobbyhopping

gone to seed the day gone to seed the day

captain part body          expose your shoulders

lead with them

plum fruit plum sweet

tu tu to me (!)

Palinode 31

2008-03-09T15:36:00.006-05:00

oh

(anti) matter body matters

I (captive so) bed me

Ask, “We bleach the sink?”

Cinch the bad bad day into parts.

sweet fruit    sweet plum

diffusionism I believe in it body    diffuse you body

I rant bad day bad bad day. I place bad bad day on this
body. I body, have bad bad day on me, body,
bad day, bad day. With-hold-yr-should-ers-with-hold-yr-wh-i-ve-a

strife-like woman

fruit plum

sweet plum

plum plum

bodiless tussle

(tut-tut) (tut-tut)

            what parts did I lose?

            these?    NO MORE?

LUNCHEON_ODES

2008-02-20T20:22:00.000-05:00

2.20.08

Oh burning! Thread me a bread-stick.

Reading

2008-01-23T16:41:00.000-05:00

I will be reading:

With my partner, poet Joey Yearous-Algozin!

This Saturday, January 26th @ 8pm!

Chapter & Verse Series, Chapterhouse Cafe
620 S. 9th Street
(B/W South and Bainbridge)

Show me the love.

Palinode 30

2007-11-11T17:18:00.000-05:00

Moan lord.   Show me your shoulders.

To die before you               (My)

(My) Combustible Body, lost in its climate;

The wind to blow the curtain off enough

To leave behind the next step towards productivity,

To follow.

So captive

how easy does circumstance bed you?

The rain has come lightly; it will not feed me fruits, plump, sweet.

This is

(My)

Tussle

To oust

Cloud, commotion,    AND MORE.

Palinode 29

2007-10-24T10:07:00.000-05:00

I am here I am
Measuring time by the sun

Completeing the next step
Toward productivity

Rain, feed me, fruits plump sweet

Imagine (how) the free world copes

Radiant and alone, your feathers

you

imagine a morning

without anticipation

Palinode 28 pt2.

2007-10-24T10:03:00.000-05:00

The arrangement

                         not imaginary

so much activity around

                                                 “crickets

                                                                               like you wouldn’t

                                                         believe”

Palinode 28

2007-10-21T14:42:00.000-05:00

They are there are not imaginary not

an arrangement /arraignment/ on a cover or book before a court

“Ah, but the day shifts so remorselessly,” says Joanne

—stable or unstable—           can’t measure time by the sun

Footsteps

Footrest

Table, my Chair                What ____less____ is calling me back here?

          this typepad

arranged in a REAL way you look silly scratching for words

Lost to the               “Fix yourself,” they say,

                                                 “make it.”

Move Bruise

Topple blades of grass, grow however

                                                                        you please

Palinode 27

2007-10-08T15:15:00.000-05:00

Project forward. Face the window and arrange the _______,

(though they are not arrange-able/ physical/ there)

facing the window,

(though they are the picture on the cover of a book. )

Say like/ Something like /_______ is not easy./

Put them here:

What occurs to me, I mean OCCURS to me is that there is not much to think about except missing, feeling uneasy, feeling almost watched, feeling the sun setting meaning less time for arranging and writing till it is dark and walls come out of nowhere. Mocking house, where time is slower, making signs to get my attention—to be a real house! I don’t want to be a wife, made a wife of it

(anything it), why must I explain?

More like IN IT, in it love of

things, love of things from afar--

Weak vine, will you grape forever? Sour? Should I sound the dinner bell to tell them? What is ready? I mean, “ready,” what is it? I’m not in it.

Palinode 26

2007-09-24T10:50:00.000-05:00

Cascarones                    Confetti                        Eggs

I wore the roar till the red wore off & have stinked in my piles of it.
Fill it, a mud from which we grow out of, to body and to shape. Which self was it that I look back to in admiration? She feels in front of me to be an ex-lover—a
body I no longer know how I fit into then. Dancing orchard, the impossibility of identicals, I still cannot tell them apart.

Why do you putter

a glass away from them?                               Why are your systems so imperfect?

YOU I miss when I wash dishes.

YOU when nighttime comes and I am unknowable to myself. & you hesitating
you are something all together else lost in your ambivalence & you have a house
and it is yours and not leaving you but you it you leave it again and again, the
place you wanted you take away yourself, and I don’t know why you do it but I do
know enough of me to know you.

Constant unconscious ego-ess, quiet your eggs, there is no reason to shoo.

Place, come to me, let’s meet halfway somewhere if it’s easier. Place come to me.

YOU,

YOU be IN IT when it comes.

Hollow decorative egg, I try to hide in the beautiful shadow within.

Make me a wife of it.

She splinters and slowly, oh moon of it, moon, my moon, don’t you yearn for a caretaker?

Double visionary, put me in your pocket, find YOURself singular again and make
me your double, I need something to be a part of.

Showy male, why did I leave YOU behind?

Flash YOUr bright feathers again, inside YOUr silly egg, I will make it

You self, you must mutter it: I miss YOU when I wash dishes.

PLACE come to ME.         Make me an equation:       allow me to understand it.

Allow me IN IT.

Tear the nettles away.      Life again, come, I am half way to you.

Palinode 25

2007-09-23T14:06:00.000-05:00

(re-done re done)

I miss you when I wash
dishes The palate ceramic
awaits the taste of foam The moon
beautiful using
the word makes it more
meaningful I am
haggling with what I am
afraid of Is this
a journal or a letter We are not (all)
IN IT
together but take me
I am here and my ears are open

I miss you when I wash
dishes My mind can
only open to
that Place
leave me I want to be
inside my complete
self We do all things
together even
when you don’t realize it and I
don’t too but being there
we are both there somehow
I feel it Too big to die
These many hands do so

Palinode 24

2007-09-19T17:30:00.000-05:00

Brackish oyster, you’re on a half            shell, broken sun.

                            I am a fraud.           & say, all assemblage

                            DOES NOT MAKE              language--

Appendage, bleed colorfully.

I CAN SEE YOU ALL.

We’re all IN IT together.

ASSEMBLE

(Adult)

In the letter talk

Your appreciation of the house

Roof enough

And from your head you pulled the god of wisdom & war

(Baby)

Being remarkable

Your yellow jacket reasoning

(Mother)

Your tail, my head

(of)

off of an animal or

choose safe slaughter,

(Lamb)

pumpernickel surprise!

Books kill spiders
quick and painless. Many
are making kamikazi
missions and at 6am I
will be meditating and trying
not to
imagine them.

Then: When IS the lunar eclipse? How come I never KNOW these things?

And when the sun rises? Will I sleep in this chair?

(infinite)

(offering)

(hovering )

(take me up.)

Palinode 23

2007-08-14T16:31:00.000-05:00

You muscles are suddenly not there. There is nothing to make your body protected from its body-ness, its bold sex.

Bold bone

You know how to act like a human in the bathroom

Too public

The world rankles-narks&nettles/ makes bitter /worsens
Or does it it-s-rapture-of-the-deep

around you all assemblage make-s-language maybe

On submission tracks, leaking to

every location, not scrupulous, not trying to carve a particular path

Into the baby’s breath many of the worlds already used will reinvent
themselves, I have been one of them. Why are you so
silent, self?

Hellos too. Much of the same things we say we do when we won’t do them, but that’s just the way people are at it, at the arched fabric, your wedding, your promenade.

Palinode 22.5

2007-07-03T17:48:00.000-05:00

we do speak too much                    too much hello

muffled air                     vents

WANT to pick up stuff walk out WANT to be outside hating outside

DAY SIX SAY

:

Take us apart.  Us from our bodies.  Us, our bodies.

I try not to {pause} you people.

Your muscles are suddenly there.

where the place is /or/ where the place is

I don’t care, we are coeval & endure the same seam.

Those are the corners and those are
the chairs that go in the corners I don’t
wait for them I am bored by them why
are there so many why do they flock like stupid birds

You think You know what You look like

Then tell me

Or god

Please flood it all again

Tell them what I see ahead:

We are only buying

It is all we do

We are making munching sounds

Coins in pockets--

Buy it, be it yours trade it like an ivory horn, sound it, your silly oliphant.

We are happy over here.

it is

2007-07-03T12:34:00.000-05:00

happening, coming back, just wait. watch a movie or something.

Palinode 21

2007-05-10T11:52:00.000-05:00

Animals

the way

we don’t speak

and anyway

my sense of god and good morning are the same

/good morning I am across the street at the café/

notes on poem: page five:

CLEAN & JERK
CLEAN & JERK

Lift the bar
A bird can’t do that
and
he will sing not say
CLEAN & JERK
CLEAN & JERK

They
are taking apart the personalities (of all the people) I see every day (on the street)
and
I know that this is not what happens or should happen anywhere (in the world)

If I were making music now, not this poem, I’d say:

We are in service for the speaking

world of

“Clean-limbed”

and

“Human”

I won’t confess anything
but

the radiance I feel when saying

“the

colony is collapsing”

I feel guilty for it,

sure

/not to tell is better /

give me absolute give me still

make the applause sound like a flock of wings of many of the same animal
moving up in the air, a sound I cannot make

the chair is waiting

reading

2007-05-06T10:48:00.000-05:00

Reading some of the palinodes today...

Sunday, May 6th, 4pm sharp!
Robin's Bookstore

108 S. 13th St., Philadelphia

Jocelyn Saidenberg
Frank Sherlock
Hailey Higdon
Will Esposito

Palinode 20

2007-04-25T16:02:00.000-05:00

                        I ask the pardoner

To pardon the times I locked

The keys in the car—so far

My intentions are to keep

Newness alert and happening

Sometimes I lose track of time

I am not as

grounded as

I think I

        \Move lightly like hedging\

        \your\

        \your dollar now\

I want to growl at the homeless

        /what can I do against it/ \bees are disappearing\

am I am an animal

and

after leaving I saw birds claw on concrete and they move sideways like I move

get drunk and can’t hear the phone ringing

there are so many watering holes we

peck at speaking men

clean crumbs without regret

and hear the others talking

        /birds claw on concrete/ they move sideways like I move/

        /aren’t we the same animal/

to sum it up

                /say/

we locked the keys in the car
we peck the lock like little finches.

Palinode 19

2007-04-02T14:36:00.000-05:00

To make sense is not the descent of the artistic.

I try to be as grounded as I can.

The concrete the
               newly refurbished sidewalk
you can talk
               about the
great Delaware river           or you can the

you see the trash bags floating

               but you cannot get a good egg roll in                      this

and the water quality in Pennsylvania is apparently          superb

but no animal can make it here
               I just wanted a canary, but am afraid I’ll
forget to feed it or abandon it, leaving
               for a vacation and only realizing
it was left after the leaving

“we”
don’t have the patience
          to move aside           lightly

“we” stomp our feet           to
          make room for the other lessons

how does one          clean anything
          without feeling a
sense of regret about it         chase away the bed of hot springs make room
          for the ammonia water

cold&clean.

What clean thing would
          just pile up sounds and call them
something? I can feel myself doing it already—
I can hear myself                     speaking.

Palinode 18

2007-03-30T21:23:00.000-05:00

We move the deer aside

Make room for the

Fodder.

I brush my teeth in horizontal

Patterns

To try to remind them

How to do it

To run or gallop—

            [Luckily the naked noise doesn’t follow
            it keeps its distance
            I don’t let it get in everything
            like your pubic hair got in my soup]

There

Must

Be

A

Million

Asian

Students

At

The

University

Of

Pennsylvania

And

Apparently

The bees have disappeared

Horded the honey—

Honey I’m sorry,

I mentioned your pubic hair

In public,

I cannot hear myself speak.

Eat your dinner.

Yours truly was asked to clean the apartment

Alright:

I     see     a      potential     pile.

              [Is this a form of cleaning?]

Straw

And

Sternum

Make

Nice

Sound

Piles

Why

Don’t

They

Make

More

Sense?

How things work...

2007-03-19T12:48:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to lift the veil on a few of the secrets behind all the mysteries that seem to happen here, in blogland, neighboring your reality. Well, the chapbook was not just miraculously formed by my Epson Stylus C88. I'm sorry to burst anyone's bubble about that. If it makes you feel any better, I believed in Santa until a VERY late age. That being said, I would like to just send out a thanks to the DIY Publishing Blog run by Shanna Compton. It basically provides all the info you need to publish a chapbook or zine, or whatever it is you publish, without waiting around for someone else to do it. It's a fun process, and worth investigating, if you are poet or not.

Secondly, the Palinodes have been coming more slowly as I'm trying to also post poems on a new project blog The Ping Project.

This is more of a collaborative blog, with Nikki Roszko, a poet, coworker, and friend, who is interested in investigating the relationships between internet spaces--looking to cross reference the work of other bloggers, with one's own poetry, these poems rise out of communications and, for me, word banks, provided by other bloggers. It's worth checking out the blog, and if you're a poet, perhaps you can join in the ping-ing.

More poetry soon, and better.

Palinode 17

2007-03-05T21:01:00.000-05:00

To decide between the bees
Settling into supper
Still quiet
Picks a different cup

Bees scatter and sense—

I start to undress the noise, but it follows

Still
sounds too loud

the winded population is
a stomachache
a pot-roast most people dress down

I didn’t want to pile up my clothes
the same,
I say,

anti-

anti

and I became a pumping steamship

        --green lakes flat as hard wood this would be quieter--

and I became a pocket purse and waited to get full

No buildup of brandished waves
No sloppy liquid lake splashing out of the sink

I can recant the messy afternoon—

Quiet the quieters hushing me

It’s not the humming bees that bother

I have forgiven them

When will the winded, the noisy, hush up its--

              -renowned
    -surround.

ready made

2007-02-28T14:33:00.000-05:00

as in, many of the copies of the book are al'ready made, if you'd like to order one. please let me know if you encounter any problems with the paypal system. this is my first time using it.

chapbook news

2007-02-25T12:37:00.000-05:00

Friends,

This is a just a note to blogland to let everyone know that I'm still here, working. The 17th palinode is back and forth from the butcher's block, but will be completed soon. Also, the printing of The Palinode Project: Book One is happening today. Finally. I will be binding the books today and tomorrow and hope to have the appropriate links up on the blog soon, if would like to order a copy.

It's off to the print shop now. Check back for updates later this week.

hailey

Palinode 16 (book two)

2007-01-29T16:12:00.000-05:00

There is too much sound;

Much sounds like

Commonplace phrasing, and the whining

I do when I don’t get my way.

I left it, angry, not really “at” anymore.

People talk too directly.

How things have escalated,

Arisen of little brandishes—

I have moved my hand dramatically to show you I am raising the bar.

Last night I dreamt of my grandmother

But you were there too

It was—I only remember—the feeling of being under—
                     the feeling of doing for,
                     following instructions,
                     following our routine—

It is safe when you fill both sinks with water, one for washing, one for rinsing.

In comparison to our sink, I think this one makes more sense—
ours stainless and undivided, a common place for a pile-up.

I left it for a pileup. Not angry at, just me in my winter clothes:

I have
two shirts,
two socks,
two hats, for my
two torsos,
two feet—
you get the idea.

There was no secret language, nothing I didn’t understand.

You didn’t brandish the dishes, you stood there and washed them.

I was not looking for symbols, not misunderstanding.

I tossed the mail up the stairs,

Went to the café and signed a petition I didn’t read.

I know, it doesn’t make sense, but it made me feel better—
Not looking at it—
      language, etc
Not trying to read it
      and still
signing on to support some fellow and
his ideas about cleaning up the waterfront or something about
cleaning up the city.

Palinode Project: Book One

2007-01-25T15:43:00.000-05:00

I will be posting more poems soon, but in the meantime, chew on this:

I will be releasing a chapbook of the first 15 palinodes. It will be a small release, only about 150 copies and selling for $3 each. I know, I know, it's hard to put a price on something you can get for free on the internet, but there are a few differences. Nicole Donnelly has done lovely cover art for the chapbook and will hopefully continue to work with me more. Also, the chapbook will include a few sparse edits to the original work, making me not cringe as much when I look back on the earlier palinodes. Finally, the books will be hand sewn! Yes, by my very hand! While I'm at work! I'll post more info once the book is all printed and sewn. Keep it real.

hailey

Palinode 15

2007-01-21T16:20:00.000-05:00

This is reality reality is

quotidian

We grow horizontal.
I am sick of it.

I read on the news of natural disasters.
I do not believe they CAN happen.

I had a dream my uncle died in a fishing accident. I think it was the salmon that ate him, I can’t be sure. Someone brought his body to us, and we continued our work day, my family, as we should, working as if it wasn’t there—stiff with rigor mortis, his mouth, almost smiling, baring his teeth, sitting with us during a family staff meeting.

What is safer—

Laundry spinning with soap
I see white when I look through the glass front of the washer

I have tried not to leave angry
I am angry that people are not

unveiled to
one
another

And all the lines of the subway map in Japan—colorful and confusing,
I think they are unrecognizable signs, language,
rails on tracks I can follow,
but can’t tell you,
where they are going—
Likewise, I cannot tell if that is my blue tee shirt or if that is a pillowcase.

What are we supposed to talk about?
We don’t have anything in common.

I would like to read the characters of this language.
I would like to know if they are symbols,
if I should look for patterns,
or if they are a jumble of strokes—the smallest units, like phonemes, indicators that you are traveling
on the red line, though it
is curvy and swings east before ending west, you can feel sure
that it will not derail, it will not
take you too far out of the way to end up where-ever it is you want to be.

Palinode 14

2007-01-16T20:14:00.000-05:00

If a train can derail, unfetter itself, and run elsewhere,
The cluster of it, as feathers, if the whole plumage were to
Explode like a chemical fire in Kentucky, like a copy machine
That works for itself—
If these change course, multiply, fluff up—reddish orange like a chicken back and
Black like smoke,
I can, at least, be sure:
The children are vertical—not leaning away to leave us—
Last night they stayed beside us;
The walls are upright, loyal, not leaving

    as I understood before

    -How we need more children, like baby chickens
    -How we should be sure they are

    comfortable, amused, watching,

not growing
-or-
tuckered out.

Palinode 13

2007-01-16T14:54:00.000-05:00

Last night our walls walked away from us.
Believe it, it’s not
an academic thing it—
it just happened
I de-
signed it—
I think
I was
screaming
about the children—how many we have,
how they are problems.

Palinode 12

2007-01-10T13:12:00.000-05:00

Your design here:

We are not in a city.
We are not in a row home.

Ours stands alone.
Ours stands alone in a prairie.

Though you imagine the grain swaying--
Though you imagine the walls swaying--
It is only
The grain,
The wind,

our walls stay put

mine

mean

I design the sky clear.
I invite them in.

“Open the back door and call in the children,” you say.

The sky, nothing is boisterous.

“Baby,” I think, “we don’t have any yet.”

Palinode 11

2007-01-10T12:29:00.000-05:00

Admitting the house is not
ours, but that it is watching us,

and we are well aware the sky is boisterous.

Uneven wind

     -Between buildings
     -Between the cracks in the walls
the way small pieces of it,
     blow like a flock
  rest
  then
I claim the righteous
snowflakes and tell them,
assuredly, they are not invited in my house.

They still come. I still let them.

The walls do not leave me.
Like wind, but cold:
  -Bricks with no putty
  -All the tiny creatures that invade that house.

Palinode 10

2007-01-09T19:46:00.000-05:00

That
-that you fluff your pillow
-that you open your mouth
If
-if I go to work
-if I stay in the area
You can tell
-I am at work
-I am distracted
-I am a restless ceiling fan
-I am doing the same thing, another time
That
-that the house caught on fire last month
-that it is not the first time
If
-if I can only concentrate on things
-if I stay in the area
-if you remember, will you remind me?

You understand I barter tentatively.
You understand I steal only the deaf night, his banal words.

That the
-the house is our house
-the house will not leave me
-the house has watched me walk to work, as far as he can see

As far as
-the avenue, probably only to the mid-six-hundred block
-the restaurant across the street where I eat pancakes

As far as
you are concerned:
-that you open your mouth to yawn like a hamster
-that you sleep with your head hard in the pillow

That
-it is slowly moving
-it is almost unnoticeable
-it is so much calmer than I am.

Palinode 9:

2007-01-08T12:02:00.000-05:00

This poem is addressed
            to you,
Despite things.

It is winter
   now and
today I am
married
to the idea.

I tried to imagine it & it came to me:

      -You are not here, not talking to me.

      -You are at work.

You are
(plus)
at work.

Again:

I wake up &
& it is raining.

In one hour, you will leave the house.
In one hour, I will leave the house.
In one
hour
the house
will leave
me, leave with me--
you are not inside,
not talking, I imagine
you are still
in your spot on
the bed:

      -You flatten your pillow.
      -You sleep with an open mouth.

I am sleepy and you tell me to lie down--
-that you will tuck me in--
-that to listen to me while I’m asleep--
-that married to the idea:
      I will be not waking
      Not rising, as Lisa says, “like science.”

delays

2006-12-19T12:15:00.000-05:00

Here is a list of possible delays to the blog:

1. FIRE
2. No Computer
3. No insurance
4. Christmas shopping?

Please forgive. I'll do my best to muscle through things and begin posting more soon.

hailey

palinode 8 1/2

2006-12-19T12:12:00.000-05:00

The land-
Scape
Is
Deafen
Ing
It is
Houses
They
Are not
Moving
Is that
Obvious?
I move
Within
Them
But if
They moved
How would
They do it?
Incrusted
Shaking

It is not
Winter
But winter-

Some
Place

Like I bought
A tree

All I can
Do
Is read
The paper
    and list:

     What
     Needs
     To
     Be
     Done

Joey took
The books
With the
Limited
Press
Runs
I took
All my
Messy
House--

Palinode 8

2006-11-27T13:33:00.000-05:00

Not to research
you
but you
Unwork work
falling into
a chair
despite things
I seat you

      “you are here you are talking”

sloppy
they are your
words I let
you speak
them with-
out interruption

I have trouble with reading the paper or
      paying attention

      to what you are talking--
      have you deliberately?

      What? It’s not funny, dear…

      Did you see the red maple by the train?

      Uh-huh.

      It is so bright. When do they lose their leaves?

      Hum?

      When do they-- dear, when do they die for the season?

      In this same poem, I am listening,
I want:

this night I

want

want a temper-

drop

ature drop to

bring

bring winter

white

white as it is

supposed

supposed to

-a-

to suppose

things

these things are

alone in me is

all

no longer all-
owed,

we are here
we are sloppy--talking.

Palinode 7: Alice ordered me

2006-11-22T14:33:00.000-05:00

Yes those languages
work work

It’s not that I
don’t understand
(sounds are not
more than thermometers--
tell me how hot it is in here)
it’s that I don’t work
that way

This is to research you
I read the paper

In seamless night smells collide
I try to lap you, speak sweetly

I know what you mean
In French or Zulu

When I’m not at work, I laugh like this:

      Republican unseated
      Despite maverick streak

      Research unseated
      Despite maverick strep throat

For meaning--I’m not the one they go to anymore

This seamless night
Nearly, a separate poem

An empty table, I said,
Not something like it
A bird without feathers
Loud
Naked

Rats in for
Shedding my dis-

& leaves, yellow
were falling

This is Alice’s style, I steal her words

here:

…company.

Ask me to pool my words from nothing
Go ahead ask me

I will tell you a narrative strain:

I still have a lover,

But I am not here.

Palinode 6: Bitter-like

2006-11-18T22:59:00.000-05:00

In this lap language I’m not speaking sweetly.

I’ll tell you the workbook words I really don’t understand:

Crisp body
Bright flavor
Noble rot.

This one I say daily:
Viscosity

:

“A measure
Of the resistance
Of a substance
To motion
Under an applied
Force.”

This sound will ruin you:
malolactic fermentation.

I say them,
Make them up,
Make them indivisible.

This is:
--German style
--South African style
--From the Loire Valley

Just a word bank, and still they ask me:

What does dry mean?

My voice is:
noble,
bright,
and crisp.

I would rather an empty table--
Ware without contingency,

Bitter-like, I say

For (preposition) no reason.

Palinode 5

2006-11-14T12:14:00.000-05:00

I will make no sound like
Ruin--

Like ruin I will make
No sound in, above, beside, like--

This is (Greek) for in
No namable preposition;

Combine them (Latin? German?)
I do not know what they mean:

Night jasmine
State room
Star connection
Jungle gym
Night jasmine
Air conditioner
Honey mouse
Visualization
Floor sample

My voice is a crepuscule unfinished--
Things said only to be seen,

Deaf night coming
nothing formed,
nothing important.

These things, something (like)
a full table, the feathers without the bird,
soundless
content.

Palinode 4

2006-11-09T14:22:00.000-05:00

‘Formed’ sounds an
important word,

ticks crisply to
one notch up.
           Hearing is not
twilight, your voice
is not downy, not
goosefeathers—

I will make
           sound

like a Person, like a
Window Opening, like
a Piano to-
gether—
        Order your
        Court, consort your
        Horses— surely,

You are important
Amorphous
        Un-
Formed;

These     words     are     enough     born,

larger.

sounds like

2006-11-08T23:09:00.000-05:00

I won’t neither
Make sounds like
Person or piano
Rememory the
Old when the
New comes up
Hearing your voice
Is like crepuscule
With Nellie, I consort
With my lips
The sun is unstuck
Undone I have muttered
Past crisp crossings
They are still new
I still -read motionless or
Quiet or yet- cannot say them.

as best he can

2006-11-07T18:29:00.000-05:00

As best he can
he will say he was
at least a body

-fingers-

-untoward texture-

he does not realize,
around the new, the old
inhabits grey matter;
to remember a concert
with a person or piano
is not remarkable;
hearing

-unuseful-

-copied-

music;
he runs his fingers through
his straight blond hair,
over his scalp
it is not beautiful--
thinning in ten years.

the doctor

2006-09-24T19:29:00.000-05:00

When entering his new life his fingers will fall softly toward the keys. His hair will be straight now, as he had wished as a boy. He will no longer need his worn out copy of Grey’s Anatomy, because he is no longer a doctor, and although he does not realize why, he keeps it around his new apartment, hoping that one day it will be useful, or one day it will teach him something he does not know. His music is daunting. Anyone is amazed to hear it. His straight beautiful blond hair will be thinning in ten years, but he has no memory of any other texture or thickness. When he grows older, he will say he was once a great concert pianist and run his fingers over his scalp, thinking backwards as best he can, and doubting, in a small way, whether that life really happened.

Must we define?

2006-08-30T12:12:00.000-05:00

palinode (PAL-uh-noad) noun

A poem in which the author retracts something said in an earlier
poem.

[From Greek palinoidia, from palin (again) + oide (song).]

2006-08-29T10:52:00.000-05:00

Two of us live in Philadelphia. I'm not sure where the rest of you are. I work at a wine store. That's me there in the green. Joey can speak for himself. I will say, his afro is not usually quite as poofy.

As for this blog, it is meant to be a venue for mainly poetry, fiction and criticism coming from our happy blue room in Fishtown. In time, I hope a few others will add in to the conversation as well.